Just as European colonizers claimed that they were on a “civilizing mission” when they invaded, occupied, and plundered Black and Brown nations over a period of centuries, the U.S.’s stated aim of “helping” Haiti is likewise patently false. The U.S. has controlled Haiti’s destiny for over a century, and building a genuine democracy there has never been on the U.S.’s agenda.
As such, imperialist feminism has reared its ugly head once again. Imperialist feminists have been around as long as imperialism itself—rooting for their own ruling class’s military escapades while repeating the jingoistic phrases used to justify any given war.
Corporate leaders have undoubtedly been keeping a close watch on the rise in working-class combativity in recent months, and they will be devising their own strategies to contest any shift in the balance of class forces that has suited them so well in the previous decades.
The UAW now has the opportunity—perhaps its last—to revive the class struggle, which is the only way to begin to reverse the balance of class forces weighted so heavily in favor of the employers for so long.
Aldean has been known to sport the Confederate flag on t-shirts as recently as 2019. He also established himself as anti-vax and anti-mask during the pandemic. He has given voice to Trump’s stolen election conspiracy theory.
An array of liberal and left-wing pundits is already blaming West in advance for the unpopular Biden’s (potential) loss to the (as yet unnamed) Republican candidate next year. Apparently, the conventional wisdom even among most self-described socialists is that it is our job to ensure Biden’s victory, even though he has done nothing to earn it.
It is no exaggeration to say that the Supreme Court’s legitimacy is teetering toward the edge of a cliff. But the right-wing fanatics currently enjoying a 6-3 supermajority in the Court do not allow such minor considerations (like accountability) to deter them from achieving their main goal: turning back the clock in U.S. society to the 1950s era, when LGBTQ people were forced to stay in the closet; college students were wealthy, Christian, and white; racial segregation still flourished; and, of course, abortion was illegal.
The film, Memorial Day Massacre: Workers Die, Film Buried, available to view for free at your local PBS station until May 1, 2024, shows not only how U.S. corporations have historically used murderous violence to prevent workers from organizing into unions, but also why most workers are not aware of this history: The corporate media has systematically suppressed it from being reported to the public.
So far in 2023, state lawmakers have introduced a record-breaking least 483 anti-trans bills. Put differently, only four states have not done so. These include banning parents from allowing their teens to attend drag shows, barring insurance companies from covering gender-affirming medical care (already in use for several decades), and even making it illegal for parents and medical providers to dispense gender affirming care to minors.
Until Donald Trump became president in 2017, former president Richard Nixon—the only president in U.S. history to resign from office—was widely regarded as setting the high-water mark for abusing the power of the U.S. presidency.
There is no denying that we face a dismal situation, in which many millions of pregnant people have been stripped of their reproductive rights, while the right wing is chomping at the bit to attack a host of other civil rights.
The consequences, as always, will be most brutal for those who are young and poor or working class—which includes a disproportionate number of Black and Brown women—who do not have the financial means or the ability to take the time off work to travel far away to a state that still allows abortions.
Those who suffer the most from all these abortion restrictions are young and poor. The parental consent requirement puts the fate of pregnant teens in the hands of a parent who may be abusive, unsympathetic to their plight, or simply reactionary.
The U.S.’ longest war in history—spanning four presidential terms, two Republican and two Democratic—finally ended on August 30th, having accomplished none of its goals and leaving Afghanistan’s population of nearly 40 million people, if anything, worse off than when it began.
In the weeks after the victory of the U.S. in Kabul, Afghanistan, media outlets featured the smiling faces of Afghan women lifting their veils, crediting the U.S. with their “liberation.” Confused liberals joined the war chorus.
